Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

by Samuel Richardson

Now this is a dear generous manner of treating me. O how I love to be generously used!—Now, my dear parents, I wish I could consult you for your opinions, how I should act. Should I go back, or should I not?—I doubt he has got too great hold in my heart, for me to be easy presently, if I should refuse: And yet this gipsy information makes me fearful.

Well, I will, I think, trust in his generosity! Yet is it not too great a trust?—especially considering how I have been used!—But then that was while he avowed his bad designs; and now he gives great hope of his good ones. And I may be the means of making many happy, as well as myself, by placing a generous confidence in him.

And then, I think, he might have sent to Colbrand, or to Robin, to carry me back, whether I would or not. And how different is his behaviour to that! And would it not look as if I was prepossessed, as he calls it, if I don’t oblige him; and as if it was a silly female piece of pride, to make him follow me to my father’s; and as if I would use him hardly in my turn, for his having used me ill in his? Upon the whole, I resolved to obey him; and if he uses me ill afterwards, double will be his ungenerous guilt!—Though hard will be my lot, to have my credulity so justly blamable, as it will then seem. For, to be sure, the world, the wise world, that never is wrong itself, judges always by events. And if he should use me ill, then I shall be blamed for trusting him: If well, O then I did right, to be sure!—But how would my censurers act in my case, before the event justifies or condemns the action, is the question?

Then I have no notion of obliging by halves; but of doing things with a grace, as one may say, where they are to be done; and so I wrote the desired letter to you, assuring you, that I had before me happier prospects than ever I had; and hoped all would end well: And that I begged you would send me, by the bearer, Mr. Thomas, my master’s groom, those papers, which I had sent you by Mr. Williams’s conveyance: For that they imported me much, for clearing up a point in my conduct, that my master was desirous to know, before he resolved to favour me, as he had intended.—But you will have that letter, before you can have this; for I would not send you this without the preceding; which now is in my master’s hands.

And so, having given the letter to Mr. Thomas for him to carry to you, when he had baited and rested after his great fatigue, I sent for Monsieur Colbrand, and Robin, and gave to the former his letter; and when he had read it, I said, You see how things stand. I am resolved to return to our master; and as he is not so well as were to be wished, the more haste you make the better: and don’t mind my fatigue, but consider only yourselves, and the horses. Robin, who guessed the matter, by his conversation with Thomas, (as I suppose,) said, God bless you, madam, and reward you, as your obligingness to my good master deserves; and may we all live to see you triumph over Mrs. Jewkes!

I wondered to hear him say so; for I was always careful of exposing my master, or even that naughty woman, before the common servants. But yet I question whether Robin would have said this, if he had not guessed, by Thomas’s message, and my resolving to return, that I might stand well with his master. So selfish are the hearts of poor mortals, that they are ready to change as favour goes!

So they were not long getting ready; and I am just setting out, back again: and I hope I shall have no reason to repent it.

Robin put on very vehemently; and when we came to the little town, where we lay on Sunday night, he gave his horses a bait, and said, he would push for his master’s that night, as it would be moon-light, if I should not be too much fatigued because there was no place between that and the town adjacent to his master’s, fit to put up at, for the night. But Monsieur Colbrand’s horse beginning to give way, made a doubt between them: wherefore I said, (hating to be on the road,) if it could be done, I should bear it well enough, I hoped; and that Monsieur Colbrand might leave his horse, when it failed, at some house, and come into the chariot. This pleased them both; and, about twelve miles short, he left the horse, and took off his spurs and holsters, etc. and, with abundance of ceremonial excuses, came into the chariot; and I sat the easier for it; for my bones ached sadly with the jolting, and so many miles travelling in so few hours, as I have done, from Sunday night, five o’clock. But, for all this, it was eleven o’clock at night, when we came to the village adjacent to my master’s; and the horses began to be very much tired, and Robin too: but I said, It would be pity to put up only three miles short of the house.

So about one we reached the gate; but every body was a-bed. But one of the helpers got the keys from Mrs. Jewkes, and opened the gates; and the horses could hardly crawl into the stable. And I, when I went to get out of the chariot, fell down, and thought I had lost the use of my limbs.

Mrs. Jewkes came down with her clothes huddled on, and lifted up her hands and eyes, at my return; but shewed more care of the horses than of me. By that time the two maids came; and I made shift to creep in, as well as I could.